Seven Miles' Worth of Paper
by Evil-Ekat
Summary: A change in major does not mean a change in hobbies. Nor, for that matter, a change in feelings. The partial portfolio of Phoenix's grown-up life.


**A more serious piece. I just wanted to write some pretty words and this was the end result I got.**

 **Read, review, and enjoy.**

* * *

 _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme._ A French play, with a title that rolled off the tongue. It was the general rule that they always put on one performance which was foreign during the year. Casting would be determined later, and he was brushing up on his French because of it. The professor had already asked for him to design the poster, and so he was. Sitting on the bed in his dorm, and contemplating the page.

Phoenix started off with the principle character of the play, Monsieur Jourdain. He tried to visualize the clothes he would be wearing, the overly opulent costume. He started with the silk stalkings, made a size too small by a faulty tailor. They were passed off as normal in the play, even as the naïve Jourdain ripped the stitches putting them on. Phoenix worked his way down to the pinched shoes he complained of. (Which were also waved off as being designed to hurt by the tailor.) As the inspiration lagged yet again, his eyes strayed elsewhere in the room. To the reference books he had dug up on French clothing. To the other homework he had, sitting at his desk. To his cork board, where interesting photos and quotes from musicals he liked were pinned. His eyes settled where they always seemed to go when he contemplated these days: a clipping from the news.

 _He_ was there, in all his Demon Prosecutor regalia, exiting the courthouse. The picture had been taken an angle, the photographer obviously a few steps below the man. He glared at not the person holding the camera, but at someone not seen in the picture. A reporter or heckler of some sort. The contempt he showed suited his face, in a way that was almost nauseating. Slippery knots tied in his stomach the first time Phoenix saw how at ease he was, glowering. It was too well-practiced of an expression to be anything but a front.

Police officers stood on either side, pushing away the people vying to see him. Despite the writhing chaos of human limbs and faces around him, he remained pristine. With his golden buttons done up like a straitjacket, and the casual disdain on his curled lip, he did not belong in that world.

Demons were supposed to savour the despair and anarchy they spread. Always, they relished in the misfortune of others. Then why did he act unaffected by the flying hair caught in the lens, the blur of people who all desperately reached towards him? Their actions were self-serving, only raising up themselves in status. Yet the quote attributed to him beneath the photo said he was a mere servant of the law. Demons tempted others with sweet promises to fulfill the heart's desires.

Phoenix swallowed hard, trying to rid himself of the lump in his throat.

"I can't really deny that last part," he said aloud.

Realizing how breathy his voice was, he corrected to no one in particular, "because my greatest desire is to tear off that cravat-jabot-scarf-thing. H-heh. Yeah..."

Phoenix glared at the cravat with unreserved venom. It truly was a hideous piece of work, but that gave him an idea. His pencil instantly flew across the page, before he even thought about what he was doing. The coat, flowery print going the wrong way, was designed next. Ruffles piled upon ruffles until Phoenix was certain he could not move in such an outfit. Long, looping patterns wove between each other until there was lace decorating every cuff. Glittering buttons which had been sewn on haphazardly lined all the way to his throat. He kept his head up, not out of pride, but because the neck was practically strangling him. He was starched and stuffed in clothes symbolic of the hilarity of the story: a bourgeois attempting to masquerade as nobility, by foolishly following the advice of the clever.

A character, who used clothing to hide reality. Who took fancy lessons in order to replicate the behavior of the people he aspired to be.

A man, who was fighting to deny his true identity.

* * *

One lazy afternoon, Dollie asked him to draw her, and he was only too happy to oblige. His oil pastels were the only thing on him that day, and he couldn't very well head back to get something else. He took out the package of limited colours, and started to sort through what he would use. It was warm that day, old grimy pastel began to melt in his fingers as he thought. The greasy smell was unpleasant, he never really enjoyed working with them, but his Dollie had asked! So, he got to work, filling out the sheer scarf which was draped around her shoulders.

If he took a few shortcuts that day, he tried not to feel guilty about it. Pastels weren't his forté anyway. He could make it up to her- not that she wasn't thrilled- later, with a better drawing. No, he would get out his watercolours and make something truly special for her!

He never did.

* * *

"Nick, why is he not wearing clothes?"

"W-we're doing studies, in classical paintings." Phoenix hastily said, trying to reach for the small planning canvas.

"But why is he naked?"

"Demons are typically depicted without clothes," he defensively said, again trying to obscure the rough draft.

Larry stepped back, still curiously looking at the penciled-in sketch which was on it.

"He's got yaoi hands Nick."

"I-I-"

"Yaoi hands," he repeated.

"I followed the reference!"

"What reference were you using?" Larry scoffed. "No one actually _has_ hands that big! It looks silly! Actually it looks like-"

 _"Here we go,"_ Phoenix thought to himself, closing his eyes in dread.

"Nick, he kinda' looks like- I'm not sure if you've read the newspaper recently, but- why would you be drawing this? Unless you're-"

 _"I'll never recover from this. He's going to act all betrayed like usual, but this time, he'll never talk to me again."_

Larry stopped in his musings when he saw that Phoenix had his eyes squeezed shut, and a bright cherry-tomato blush on his face.

"This is weird Nick, I don't like it."

"The fact that I'm p-pan?" Phoenix asked, trying not to stutter over the word.

"What does that have to do with anything? Where did that even come from?" Larry asked in confusion. "I'm talking about how even when Edgey's been gone since we were ten, I'm still somehow the third wheel! How come you never ask me to model naked?! _Huh?!_ I'm right here! You don't need to suffer through all these anatomy problems, just ask me for help Nick!"

Phoenix buried his face in his hands. Larry comfortingly patted him on the back.

"Don't worry, Veronica won't get jealous! My GF knows that we're BFs! As in best friends! Unless you like me in that way, but-"

Conversations like this were why he did not draw Edgeworth, nor anyone else, for a very, _very_ long time.

* * *

Paper and playbooks were traded for a Latin dictionary and endless relevant case files. It was only when shadowing Mia at an investigation that his art skills were needed once more. It was a tough case, for both the prosecution and the defense. There was a small amount of evidence which incriminated the defendant, and that was it. A tiny smear of crimson was on the tiled floor, the blood of the victim. And, upon closer inspection, the smudge was actually a partial print, which matched that of the defendant. Honey Est, the owner of the shoe store, smiled at them apologetically.

"I'm sorry, but that's all there is," she said. "Now, if you don't mind, I need to go do some inventorying. The police believe this might be a money-motivated crime, so I have to check."

"We'll show ourselves out," Mia firmly replied, not moving from where she stood.

Fluttering her long eyelashes, she turned to him.

"W-we'll show ourselves out," he replied, nodding dumbly, and stepping towards the entrance.

She grinned, and went to the back room. The moment the door swung shut, he sighed in disgust. Unlike Larry, he had learned his lesson about girls, and had sworn off them.

"Maybe there's more blood, and it's been cleaned up?" Phoenix suggested.

"No, I already had a friend, check with luminol."

He sat down on a nearby stool, and tried to turn his thinking about like Chief had taught him. There was only a little blood on the floor, and none had been detected anywhere else in the building. The victim had stopped bleeding when she was deposited on the floor, otherwise there would have been a large puddle of coagulated blood. Yet, they knew she had died after entering the store due to video footage, and credit card transactions. How could the victim be killed with so little blood being found?

He stared at the shelves which were crammed with shoes. Could someone have drained all the blood into the pair of rainboots on display? He got up to check, and was proven wrong. Despite how hideous they were, nothing was hidden inside them. But, as he stepped back from the area, something didn't quite click. In the apartment above the store, he distinctly recalled there being a washroom. It wouldn't be directly above his head though. He looked to the worn, water-damaged ceiling to confirm this. The stucco was sagging in places, which proved there was something up. The sink was right above his head, where the water damage was, but the bathroom extended past it.

In the corner of the notes he was taking for Mia, he sketched his theory. It was a basic plan of the first and second floors.

"Now isn't the time to be doodling," she scolded, not even looking up from the stain.

"I'm not," he mumbled.

"Phoenix," she warned, when he did not stop.

The third drawing layered both floors on top of each other, helping support his theory.

"'S important. I promise."

She got up from her crouched position to see what he was doing.

"That wall is false, it has to be," he explained. "There's only about a foot's difference, but it doesn't match up."

Mia strode up to the spot, and rapped it with her knuckles. A distinct, hollow sound echoed back.

"Go find that detective," she instructed. "Tell him we need something to bring this down."

"Will do Chief!"

Secret passages, from an old store built around the time of Prohibition. And a trail of blood which wound through it all. Needless to say, what they found decimated the prosecution's case.

"I forgot you were an arts student," said Mia as they left the courthouse. "But it really helped us out today."

"Um, yeah w-well-"

"They're good. Your drawings."

"Law is my true calling," he assured her. "I'm not switching my major back. I can't, for _his_ sake-"

Mia, who had heard the determined spiel many times before, interrupted him, "I wasn't suggesting you should. But maybe you should keep it up."

"Actually being useful during the investigation, or art?"

"Both."

* * *

From then on, he tried to take Mia's suggestion, but only three pieces stand out to him from that time.

Early spring, the trees had delicate buds on them, and a film of ice covered most the lake. A small boy hunched near the freezing water, pushing a paper boat out. From a park bench, his father watches, and smiles.

He draws a twisted and disfigured tombstone. There was a name on it at one point, but he scratched it out with long strokes of his pencil. Until it tore through the page and blackened the paper beneath it.

A man was rushing through the airport, made distinct by the way he balanced his suitcase and carry-on. He had an important flight to make from the looks of it. One would think someone's life was on the line, from the way he was pushing past the crowd.

* * *

Political cartoons were next. It is all that he can bother to put the time into. Familiar faces of the courthouse are warped. Their proportions are stretched and exaggerated like reflections in a funhouse mirror. He writes snarky little captions underneath when a new idea strikes him. If the wrong person found these, he could get into a lot of trouble. The wrong people, or rather, person, does end up finding one. Leaving out the notepad had been careless, yes, but it was such a gross violation of artistic etiquette for Kristoph to be going through it. He stops on the page with a parody of the judge. His bald head gleamed in the picture. The defense and prosecution alike are clawing at their eyes, to stop the light from shining.

 _The real reason justice is blind._

The price of silence was a portrait. If Edgeworth was the Demon Prosecutor, then he was the Devil. Of course, he couldn't draw that on the page, even as the horns of a ram seem to curl from his head. Even as he imagined long, poisonous claws in the places where his well-kept fingernails should be. There was also pitchfork leaning against his chair. Maybe he could pass it off as one of Trucy's props when he eventually asks about it. Phoenix sides against it of course.

Instead, with deliberately sloppy motions of the charcoal, he sketched the tip of the iceberg. Ignoring all of the hideous, squirming insects which are eating through his porcelain skin. Adding a glare to the glasses which obscured his eyes, so that one could not see the slitted pupils of a reptilian kind.

What he wanted, he made. A dignified if generic illustration. Nothing significant happened with the clothing. In fact, he started there first. It was simplest to outline the blazer and shirt tucked beneath it. Charcoal meant no colour, only shifting layers of burnt greys. He didn't have to acknowledge the sickly lavender eyesore. With the pads of his fingers, he blended, forming the softly glowing halo which reflected off his pale hair. He held himself with stiff formality, bringing one word to mind: control. Every muscle seemed taught, straining under the force which held them unified. He tried to give off an air of collected calm. But the cards he held were all just waiting to scatter at the slightest puff of wind.

It would be strange to draw without a single act of defiance on the page. Thus he whipped out his largest, most obnoxious signature. The one he had practiced for hours at university, in order to get just right. It was flashy, with many embellishments on the capitals, but no one could deny that it was elegant as well.

Kristoph took it with a polite smile and Phoenix never saw it again.

The whole ordeal finished, he redrew the truth that only he could see, and set it alight. There was no sense in risking more incrimination after all.

* * *

It had been harder to ask him this than when they had fumbled through their confessions. Their feelings had been mutual, and both had suspected for a while that maybe it was time to do something. If course it had taken outside interference to push them into admitting the truth.

This was different, in so many ways and on many different levels. Almost two decades had been spent, reaching the point where he was both emotionally and artistically. But he knew what he wanted now, and it wasn't exes or crime scenes or cartoons. It was him. Not an amateur photograph from a tabloid, nor the face and clothes he had learned to draw from memory. Just, him.

He had waited until a day when he could send Apollo, Athena, and Trucy out to Kurain Village. A day which was _coincidentally_ part of the vacation which Miles had carved out for himself.

"If you're interested-" he stammered, already stumbling over his words. "I'd like to- but only if- well-"

"What is it?"

He looked wary, uncertain of what would make him fumble with his words this badly. Perhaps even a bit nervous.

"I want. To draw. You."

"Me?"

"Naked."

"Oh."

Phoenix had his full attention now, but they just sort of stared at each other.

"Erm, why... is that?"

"I've tried before," he explained, taking out an old sketchbook he had dug up for this exact reason. "Using pictures and stuff. I mean, not without clothes, you know what I'm talking about."

What Phoenix said did not matter. Miles was too busy soaking in one of many drawings. It was old and embarrassing, probably one of the first he had made. The memory was pretty fuzzy, it had been ages ago. But he was laying himself bear for the man. He hoped that it could be seen as an equal exchange.

 _"I'll show you years worth of embarrassing art if you'll do something embarrassing for me."_

Then, with a hesitant hand, he picked up the page. Miles looked to Phoenix for permission, and he nodded. After viewing the second drawing, and discovering the third, he picked it up and leaned back on the couch. He kept his face carefully neutral throughout, and eventually came to the dates written at the end.

"Well of course there's something off," he finally spoke. "You kept adding in shoujo sparkles and roses. I also don't recall ever wearing that much eyeliner."

"It was a phase!"

"Do you have any more attempts?"

"Yeah, actually. I could dig out another old portfolio, I think it was with the sheet music..."

And he did go through the effort to wade in the clutter of the office, until he found what he was looking for. Miles was less amused and more thoughtful with these.

"What are you going to do with it?" Miles asked. "The new drawing?"

"Revel in the satisfaction of finally doing it right. Also maybe try my hand at oil paints again, make a version to hang over the mantle in your office-"

"Wright."

"I don't actually know," he confessed.

"In addition," he gestured to the window. "It's cold."

"I'll turn up the heat."

"What if I can't hold the position you want?"

"It'll be a natural one, you can watch some Steel Samurai while I work so you don't get bored."

"The couch is-"

"I'll have some clean sheets covering it."

"My-"

"Say no if you don't want to."

"I just don't understand."

"Understand what?"

"Why me? Why now? I'm-"

Two fingers were brought to his waist, and he pinched them, pulling loose skin and fat away from his body. Then he waved to the general area of his chest, the crescents around his eyes.

"What about it? Any of that?"

"Who cares? I've spent years drawing you from blurry references and memory! It's all overly flattering garbage!" Phoenix then lowered his voice. "I want you. Just you. No Demon Prosecutor costumes or distracting neckwear. Just you."

The dusting of blush on Miles' cheeks grew darker. He grasped his arm and looked to the side, averting his attention.

"Bleeding heart," he grumbled.

He always did have trouble taking compliments.

"So you'll do it?"

"Of course."

 _ **Fin**_


End file.
